The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1887-05-27
THE GRIMES OF THE INDIANA DEMOCRACY.

THE CRIMES OF THE INDIANA DEMOCRACY.
The late General Assembly has done the
people of Indiana one important service 1t
has disclosed the fact that the crimes COM
mitted at the Insane Hospital are not the
offenses of a few individuals or even of the
Democratic board of trustees, but they are
the crimes of the Democratic party itself.
Parties, like individuals, may easily make
mistakes in the men they select for public
trusts. The Brown bill, under which the
hospital is operated, was a partisan measure,
but it fell short Of being criminal. The
election of Dr. Harrison was utterly indefen-
sible. but the Democratic legislators who
elected him could shelter themselves behind
the plea that they did not know that he was
as bad man as he is. But when the
outrages committed at the hospital were
once proven-when the evidence, as
published day by day in the pub
lie press, showed that the funds of the
State were embezzled; that trustees were paid
for services which not performed; that
patients were leased, beaten, and horribly
when it was shown that diseased meat, mag
gotty butter, and other poisonous and
wholesome food had been furnished by dis
honest contractors, and that all these articles
were paid for at the highest prices-when
these things and hundred others of like inn
port were shown by unauestionable evidence;
when, after all this, the Democratic investi-
eating committee of the Senate reported that
the hospital is the best-managed institution
of the kind in the world, and every Democrat
| in the Senate voted for this report; and when,
after all this, the Democratic minority of the
committee in the House reported that the in
vestigation of these charges was partisan
| affair, and declared the trustees to be honor
able men, and every Democrat in the House
voted accordingly, there is but one infer
| ence from such line of conduct: The Demo
cratic party has, with full knowledge, deliber-
ately ratified the crimes at the hospital.
Every man who hereafter votes for party
which has thus sustained this infamy becomes
himself an approver of these crimes. The
board of trustees, the Indianapolis Sentinel,
and the Democratic members of the Legis-
lature, and all other accessories to these Grim
inal acts, may rest assured that this issue will
be fully presented in all its details to every
voter in the State before the next election;
and to believe that that party can ever again
! rise from under the crushing weight of this
testimony is to believe that the people of In
| Of into wiz
| Their views upon this subject were expressed
quite emphatically at the last election. In
the next campaign they will be heard from
with such effect that repetition of such a
policy will be made impossible for at least a
| generation to come.
The Governor of Indiana this lost
clearly, and DESTROYS as he is of averting from
his party the doom which is hanging over it,
he declares vacant and fills by appointment
the places held by DR.. Harrison and Mr..
Gapen, the two members of the board whose
record is most vulnerable. In this measure of
removal Eve express no opinion to the ap-
pointees) he deserves the support of the peo-
| ple But this late and half-hearted effort at
reform on the part of single individual can
| do but little to counteract the conviction
that all the enormities at the hospital had
their root in Democratic greed, and that they
were deliberately ratified and Endorsed by the
representatives of the whole body of the De-
mocracy in the last Legislature. The admin
istration of the Hospital has been Demo
cratic crime, and nothing short of aban-
Comment of the partisan system of manage
ment will ever remove the public execration
| which will follow it.